Chapter 256: Chapter 235: Responsibility

I had a few things to ponder as I waited for Krana. Why some dragons reacted more consistently to mana than others. What terror Cluma was inflicting on Dawnhold without my supervision for an entire day. How much longer I was going to be stuck here, and whether my toes would suffer frostbite before Krana called for me. I could have just teleported elsewhere, but frostbite might be good for my [Regeneration] levels. Besides, I'd given Krana my promise.

How weird was it that I was sitting in the middle of a lake of lava, worrying about frostbite? I'd thought Cluma's bouncy room was an interesting piece of interior decoration, but obviously I'd not stopped to consider the potential of lava waterfalls and magical ice lotuses.

It wasn't actually long before Krana called me, whatever it felt like. Which immediately gave rise to another problem; my usual position of lying down to teleport worked best when the floor wasn't made of magical ice. I could leave a pile of clothes there, but then I wouldn't be able to teleport them. I'd just have to teleport standing up.

Thus I ended up in a bit of a clump at Krana's feet. Who was bleeding quite heavily from multiple wounds. An entire patch of scales had been torn off one side of his torso.

"Hey?! Are you okay?"

"As I stated, I am not able to clear the final boss of this dungeon uninjured. I require healing, but my need is not immediate. Go, do what you must. I will observe."

He could try... If I actually found anything Law related, he would likely find his powers of observation far below the expected level.

Krana had brought me to an enormous cavern, and now that I was paying attention, scars of battle were everywhere. Patches of unnaturally smooth floor had obviously been melted and refrozen. Great rents had been torn in walls and floor alike. Some pillars of rock I'd assumed were stalagmites were, on closer inspection, at angles that could never occur naturally. All that was missing were the corpses of the monsters, the dungeon having eaten them once the fight ended, leaving me with no idea what Krana had been fighting.

There was a chest, though, which Krana plodded over to, slicing the lid off with a claw, picking up the bottom half and tipping it upside-down over his other front paw. A tiny ring fell out, looking like a speck of dust compared to the limb of the dragon. Seemed a bit cheap for the final floor of the great dungeon, but it probably had rank five enchantments or something.

... Which would have been more interesting before Grover reached rank five.

There was a teleportation crystal set near the only entrance in the room, but beyond that, no interesting features were visible. Not trusting the evidence of my eyes, I switched to [Mana Sight], and sure enough, there was a breeze. At the back of the room, a flow of mana led directly into the rock wall.

Of course, just because mana could pass through the rock—or small channels in it, according to my closer inspection—didn't mean I could. Krana's rock-bending trick didn't work on dungeon stone, and having him melt his way through risked damage to the core. How were we supposed to access it?

"I've come to pass judgement on the Law," I said, on the basis of past evidence that Erryn liked factual passwords, and the wall opened.

I stood staring at the open passageway, unmoving, until Krana walked over.

"Well? Is this not what you were looking for? Why do you tarry?"

"I wasn't expecting that to actually work!"

"Then why did you try?"

"Desperation!"

Krana's eyes narrowed to slits. "I know not what drove you to this place, but will standing here doing nothing resolve it? I require healing, and cannot await you forever."

Right... Krana was still bleeding badly. "I have rank three healing potions, if you want some?"

"I have already consumed more potions than is healthy. I cannot utilise more."

Wow. This was his state after potions? I shook my head; he was right. Standing here in a daze would achieve nothing. With heart hammering in my chest and trepidation increasing with every step I took, I made my way down the corridor.

The core room of the great dungeon.

I hadn't earned it in the slightest. I'd abused my magic and a rank five dragon to bypass the dungeon in its entirety. I hadn't followed Erryn's instructions, either. She'd told me to meet all the world's races, but I'd never met a mer, and never even seen a centaur. I'd only met harpies because of the twins. I'd started exploring, but never taken it as far as I could have, given [Weft Walk]. And now I had [Timeless World]. I could probably cross the continent in a couple of days.

I stepped into a vaulted chamber, then looked around in confusion. There were no statues of monsters, nor was there a plaque. Nothing like the previous core rooms I'd seen. More importantly, there was no core.

"A... graveyard?" asked Krana, looking around in confusion. "This is what you came for?"

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He was right. We were in a graveyard. Neat rows of stone stakes, growing from the ground, with clear paths between them. Below them, [Mana Sight] showed skeletons. All looked... human? They were human sized, with none of the extra add-ons of the other races, but the structure didn't look quite the same.

In the centre, a monument of stone and precious metals. On it was engraved a simple message. "Here lie a people that I never knew, yet I weep for their loss."

"No," I answered. "I had no idea this was here. I think... this is a memorial to the previous civilization."

How long did bones take to decay? Did they decay at all? The skeletons were in a range of conditions, but some of them looked practically pristine. Had Erryn preserved them?

I walked carefully along the paths, making my way to an archway at the back of the chamber. The walls were too smooth to call this room a cavern. There were some natural touches, but mostly only at floor level. The chamber itself was carefully carved dungeon stone. Krana shrunk down behind me, following the paths in silence. The place had that sort of effect, just like a library. It felt wrong to make any sort of noise.

The arch led not to another corridor but straight into the core room. Erryn had obviously wanted to keep this memorial close. To her, who was born into their dead world, reminders of what had come before were probably more poignant than to us.

"This is impressive," stated Krana, looking around with interest, and I agreed wholeheartedly. While this did have some similarities to the other core rooms I'd seen, this one was writ large. There wasn't just a single ring of statues, but the chamber was multi-levelled, with paired spiral staircases winding around the centre. A full five floors were full of hundreds of metallic figures, forged from gold, silver, platinum or magical equivalents. There was a heavy use of light affinity, in the form of glowing steel and sun-plate stone.

Ridiculously, some of the bigger statues were hihi'irokane. One was on par with Krana's full size. It was probably best Grover never found out that Erryn had been using such ridiculous amounts of it for decoration.

At the very centre, a core larger than any I'd seen before sat on a pedestal, but there wasn't a whiff of soul about it. [Eye of Judgement] claimed it to be nothing more than another mechanised core, albeit one that was rank five.

I put all that aside, though, focused instead on a massive black crystal. It didn't have any more soul about it than the core, but it did have more than a whiff of soul affinity.

... I really hated soul affinity.

Hoping that I wasn't going to regret it, or at least that I'd survive to regret it, I walked up to it and poked it.

There was no interface, explanation, or even words. Simply the weight of expectation, which bore down on me, demanding that I answer.

I withdrew my touch. Coming here had been an intercontinental long-shot, but when the rear doors had swung open, I'd dared to hope. Alas, it wasn't to be. This was no control centre that would let me protect individuals from the Law. It simply wanted to know my thoughts. Perhaps it would act on them, or perhaps it wouldn't, merely saving the knowledge for Erryn's future return, in case I died before her soul healed.

But I was here now, and I wasn't likely to come back again anytime soon. I did have an answer. What were the chances of things going wrong if I gave it? If it acted on it, what were the chances of saving the researchers? Or Earth?

My problem was that my opinion wasn't what was best for the safety of this world. To state my thoughts simply, the Law shouldn't be removed from those already under it, and shouldn't be forced upon those who weren't. If those who weren't wanted it, that was their own choice. As for children... I was less certain, but while I'd struggle to explain my reasoning, I thought it boiled down to following their surroundings. Children born here should follow the Law. Those born on Earth should not.

Those rules would permit safe invasion of us by Earth. As things were, in the worst case, I could reattach everyone on Earth to the System and it would only be a matter of time before the Law took them. If my opinions were acted on, they'd be able to cross over here unworried about their minds being overwritten and do whatever they liked. Yes, they'd still die of disease if they weren't careful, but they had remote drones and hazmat suits.

I could modify my rules slightly, adding the clause that anyone crossing to this world with malicious intent should be Lawified. And with that rule, I'd invented thought crime, and, arguably, capital punishment for it. Any who thought about harming this world would be killed and replaced before they'd even done any harm. Maybe that wasn't so bad, but how the hell would I draw the line for 'malicious intent'? If they were planning to wipe out a village, then sure. If they just stole a few monster cores? Was that worth a mind-wipe? And that assumed such a setup was even possible. Who would decide on malicious intent? What if they stayed on the Earth side and used drones?

I couldn't risk it. I refused to be responsible for a second graveyard. I couldn't risk protecting this world's enemies from the Law, regardless of my personal beliefs.

Harry's comment about the trolley problem had been foresightful. That was effectively what I was faced with, with the complication that I wasn't certain stating my opinions would actually have any effect, or even that we would really be facing hostile visitors in the future. Us or them. This world or Earth.

Not pulling the lever was so much easier than pulling it.

"Thanks. I found what I came here for," I said to Krana as I turned my back on the crystal.

Erryn had complained about not being able to understand humans, but the inverse had always been true, too. I'd never understood her. Now, though, as I walked away from my potential means of saving our Earthen guests, I felt I'd got a glimpse. To do something that you deeply suspect of being wrong, but to keep doing it anyway for the greater good.

After all, the road to hell was paved with good intentions.

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